We spent time in southern California. I could write about walking along beaches, warm
\nsunsets, and missing bitter cold back here. Perhaps I will. But today, I must join my
\nvoice to the resistance.<\/p>\n
What is happening to fellow human beings, sometimes for no offense other than having
\ndark skin is horrific, indefensible, and wrong on a thousand levels.<\/p>\n
Much is being said and written. Perhaps it is prideful of me to think the voice of one old
\nfarmer in Brown County matters. For what it\u2019s worth, I must join the protestors and say,
\n\u201cThis is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObama deported people, too.\u201d As a tool of immigration control, applied legally and
\nhumanely, deporting certain individuals has a place. What\u2019s happening now is most
\noften illegal and regularly sickeningly inhumane.<\/p>\n
During our California days, as we met people, it would come up that we were from
\nMinnesota. We would get a response like, \u201cOh. I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once again, our humble state is the center of the news universe. I check in to BBC
\nNews, and there we are. I should add the BBC reporters are shocked by what has
\nhappened to the United Kingdom\u2019s one-time ally.<\/p>\n
ICE has been in Sleepy Eye. They were hassling an older Hispanic man. When Sleepy
\nEye Police showed up, the ICE agents loaded into four vehicles and left town. It is
\npossible the outcome would have been different were it not for our officer\u2019s presence.
\nICE is in Willmar, St. Cloud, Mankato, but Minneapolis remains the epicenter, both for
\nabductions and protests. I have friends there who have been part of the protests. It
\nshouldn\u2019t be true, but one takes part in a legal protest at some risk right now.<\/p>\n
I admire my friends and the thousands standing in the cold. Those hardy souls are
\ntrying to save our country. That sounds like hyperventilating to say that. But this is totally
\na moment that will define who we are and who we will be. Will we go further down this
\ndark path?<\/p>\n
Children being taken. Churches, schools, hospitals, no longer protected. House doors
\nrammed open, car windows smashed, people dragged out of both. No warrants
\nrequired. Skin color allowed to stand for cause. Shipping people around the country to
\nbe detained in terrible facilities. Poorly trained forces with arsenals, masked with no
\nidentification.<\/p>\n
Certainly, Americans haven\u2019t always been angels. Thousands of civilians have been
\nkilled by our military. But as for Americans mistreating men, women, and children on our
\nsoil, this stands out. Treatment of Blacks in the Jim Crow south is the only thing close.<\/p>\n
As far as men in authority running roughshod over human beings, their rights, and the
\nconstitution, we are in a watershed moment. Things could get better. There is no
\nguarantee of that. We know from history, things could get worse.<\/p>\n
Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward
\njustice.” With apologies to Dr. King, I no longer believe that. Seventy years on this
\nplanet has shown me too much evidence that human beings can be pretty crappy to
\nothers. Especially men in power.<\/p>\n
A thousand points of light can be snuffed out by one evil act.
\nOur time in California was spent from San Diego to Los Angeles. It is only a slight
\nexaggeration to say that everybody we saw who was doing any kind of work was
\nHispanic.<\/p>\n
Knowing what was going on back here, I wondered if Minnesota with its relatively small
\nnon-white population is a warmup act for the big show? Or would the resistance in that
\nbig state overwhelm ICE? If Stephen Miller is going to make this the white
\n\u201cChristian\u201d nation he pines for, such an operation is in our future.<\/p>\n
The superintendent of Sleepy Eye Public School said, \u201cAny outside agencies are
\nprohibited from entering our school without permission or a valid warrant or court order.\u201d
\nThat statement would have meant something a couple months ago. Now ICE is entering
\nschools, homes, and businesses without permission, warrant, or order. It is only illegal if
\nsomeone makes it so. That\u2019s what the government used to do.<\/p>\n
Most people I know oppose this. The majority of Americans do. But enough are okay
\nwith it that it continues. I have thought about how one can be okay with this, the largest
\nprogram of authorized abuse of civil and constitutional rights in my lifetime.<\/p>\n
There are a set of people who will never challenge Donald Trump. That is clear now. I
\ncan\u2019t understand it, but it just is. I think in many cases, they know this is wrong inside of
\nthem. I suspect that is true for many Republican members of Congress. It\u2019s a type of
\nloyalty, I guess.<\/p>\n
What about others? You don\u2019t have to search to know stories of ICE acting illegally and
\ninhumanely. I get things on my phone, but old-fashioned newspapers and radio are filled
\nwith them. I guess it\u2019s possible to not know what\u2019s going on.
\nThere are so many untruths.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are detaining the worst of the worst.\u201d A few criminals run on a loop in
\nadministration talking points. Most of those abducted are workers who are contributing
\nto their communities. This remains true. Immigrants commit crimes at a lower level than
\nother citizens. Look it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re here illegally.\u201d First, migration is not a crime. Being undocumented is a civil
\nissue. Using mass detention as a form of immigration processing violates international
\nlaw.
\nBeyond that, many are here legally in some stage of applying for refugee or immigration
\nstatus. The administration has arbitrarily ended programs that Congress created. If we
\nhad a functioning Congress, they would not allow that.<\/p>\n
\u201cICE is protecting children by apprehending them.\u201d I suppose someone somewhere
\nbelieves that.<\/p>\n
I remember hearing Kristi Noem say that Renee Good had driven over an agent and
\nAlex Pretti had drawn a gun on agents to massacre them. Within hours the world knew
\nthose were not true. There was no retraction by the administration. There is never a
\nretraction.<\/p>\n
Among the lies, there are the golden oldies. The 2020 election was stolen, despite there
\nbeing no evidence. And January 6 th didn\u2019t happen, even though we all watched it.
\nI read this. A reporter asked A. J. Muste, a clergy man and pacifist, who protested the
\nVietnam War, \u201cDo you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by
\nstanding out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle?\u201d<\/p>\n
Muste replied softly, \u201cOh I don\u2019t do this to change the country. I do this so the country
\nwon\u2019t change me.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s all we can do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We spent time in southern California. I could write about walking along beaches, warm sunsets, and missing bitter cold back here. Perhaps I will. But today, I must join my voice to the resistance. What is happening to fellow human beings, sometimes for no offense other than having dark skin is horrific, indefensible, and wrong …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 14:02:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145321"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145323,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145321\/revisions\/145323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}